Mikko Kosonen, the President for the Finnish Innovation Fund (Sitra) since 2008, with experience in companies such as Nokia, TeliaSonera Finland Oyj, The Foundation for Economic Education, Kuntien Tiera Oy, Technology Academy Finland, Fifth Element Oy, Kesko, Itella Corporation and Hewlett-Packard Corp, concentrated in a short talk, on one main problem, that of cyber security.

Basing his knowledge on his vast experiences and publications Mikko Kosonen stated that cyber security is extremely different from other issues that governments face, such as climate change. Climate change is an issue that is occurring at too slow a pace for governments to make drastic changes. On the contrary, cyber activity is moving at too fast a pace to be changed by governments. Mikko Kosonen continued by presenting an interesting Finish model of dealing with the matter of cyber security.

Cyber security is extremely different from other issues that governments face, such as climate change.

From Mikko Kosonen experience of chairing a group on cyber security a few years ago, he found that there are many more political problems involved in the topic than one might expect. For one, cyber security is not a top down problem, but an interesting area that many people seek to own. Secondly, centralization cannot be seen as a solution, yet a bottom up model is not useful either in this scenario.

Based on these observations, Mikko Kosonen has come up with 3 solutions for the cyber security debate:

Form a Cyber situation awareness center in the ministry of communications.

Create the center made up of different people and different areas of stakeholders. Create a members practice and share issues.

Generate dynamic rules of the game, allowing whichever party is first to identify a problem, is the one take ownership and lets the others follow.

This can be seen as an adapted logic of Yves Doz’ of strategic agility whereby people can see the situation at the same time as acting on it. This shows an example of a short and simple solution that was put into place in order to solve a complex problem.

In the end the strategy is about trust, not about money, and there is a strong need for people to practice and share information with one another.

Mikko Kosonen is the President for the Finnish Innovation Fund (Sitra) since 2008.

Previously, Kosonen worked for Nokia (1984–2007), most recently as SVP, Strategy and Business Infrastructure (1996-2005) and Senior Advisor (2005 – 2007). He has been a member of the Boards of TeliaSonera Finland Oyj (2013-), Foundation for Economic Education (2011-), Kuntien Tiera Oy (2010-), Technology Academy Finland (2009-), Fifth Element Oy (2008-), Kesko (2009-2012), Itella Corporation (2003–2009, Vice Chairman 2006–2009), and Member of the Communications Advisory Board of Hewlett-Packard Corp. (2000-2005).

Mikko Kosonen completed his PhD in International Business at the Helsinki School of Economics in 1991. He was awarded Honorary Professorship of Budapest Business School in 2012. He has published several books and articles on strategic management (most recently Fast Strategy – How Strategic Agility will help you stay ahead of the game, 2008 and New Deal at the Top, Harvard Business Review 2007). Kosonen was born in Ontario, Canada, on 22 January 1957. He has a wife and three children. His interests include sports and culture.